Mwahaha re-release debut album and announce first European show

11 March 2013

Mwahaha - Mwahaha

Oakland based psych pop rock outfit Mwahaha, a longtime favourite of ours, are re-releasing their outstanding self-titled debut album later this month via Plug Research. Mwahaha, which was originally released in December 2011 via the foursome’s own imprint Mwahaha Music, will be available on double vinyl, CD and digitally on March 26th.

Earlier today, Mwahaha confirmed they’ll be opening up for Sigur Ros on June 30th as part of the Eden Sessions at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for more European dates.

Here’s a taste from the album, the excellent opening track ‘Swimmer’.

Bibio offers first taste from upcoming album Silver Wilkinson

07 March 2013

Bibio - Silver Wilkinson

British producer and musician Stephen Wilkinson aka Bibio has announced the release of his seventh album fittingly titled Silver Wilkinson. The effort draws inspiration from organic environments, particularly his own garden.
“If there was a preconceived idea before this album started coming together, it was a fairly vague one: to focus more on an organic and live sound and to record more guitar and other live instrumentation”, said Bibio in a handwritten statement about his forthcoming album. “I like the idea of comparing albums to seasons – they stand alone yet are part of a bigger story. They complement each other. So this album, to an extent, started out with the desire for a new ‘season’, contrasting somewhat with the previous.”

Silver Wilkinson will hit stores on May 13th in Europe and a day later in North America via Warp. Ahead of it, Bibio dropped the first bright and gorgeous single, ‘À tout à l’heure’. Bibio explains how the song came about:

“The recording of  ‘À tout à l’heure’ started out in my garden on a gorgeous sunny day when it felt morally wrong to be hidden away indoors. I still had the urge to make music so I limited myself to a few bits of gear and set up in my garden: a 12 string guitar, an MPC sampler, a microphone and a cassette recorder. I drummed on objects in the garden, like a plastic watering can and ‘snipped’ garden shears for percussion parts. The guitar part was something I had been developing over some time in my head but it was this change of environment that led to recording the backbone of this song, which I then continued to build upon in my studio later. When I listen to the intro of that track now, I still hear the sunshine and the garden in it because for me it’s like a photograph of that moment. No doubt the sunny outdoors inspired the lyrics too.”

Listen to ‘À tout à l’heure’ beneath and grab it free here, in exchange for an email.

Superhuman Happiness release fun-filled debut album

06 March 2013

Superhuman HappinessYou probably know by now we have been highly anticipating the release of Hands, the debut album from New York based collective Superhuman Happiness. The wait is finally over and the septet’s album came out yesterday via The Royal Potato Family.

Hands, which takes its name from a series of hand-clapping games the band would play at the beginning of each rehearsal, is a joyful, vibrant, infectious and sexy album. A kaleidoscopic party is to be had listening to it.

We might soon be hearing more from Superhuman Happiness here on Cast the Dice. Before that, make sure you head over to Spinner where the full album is streaming, or buy it here. You’ll be listening to it again and again.

That Iron Taste by Marika Hackman

by Honeybear - 04 March 2013

Marika Hackman - That Iron Taste

Very rarely there is a new artist with an ineffable quality that instantly registers strongly enough to make it seem obvious that they are on an unavoidable course towards doing some fantastic things. More scarce still is the artist that lives up to that initial impression.

With only one single and an ep of cover songs, strong as they may be, the jury was still out on Marika Hackman until the recent release of her first true album, That Iron Taste, and I’m more than pleased at the result, I feel like my hunch was steadfastly affirmed.

Opening at a jaunty pace that may cloak the darkness of the lyrics, though ultimately optimistic, “Bath Is Black” is fitting introduction to the Marika Hackman’s song-writting style. It’s this quality I value most in her songs: There is a constant self-assurance amongst much darkness.

Along with this release comes a video for “Cannibal”. On more than one occasion has someone mentioned “The Shining” while watching this video (and without fail how disgusting is it), but it is done in quite a beautiful way. Of the 7,000 views on YouTube, I can only guess at how many of them I am responsible for.

Closing out the album is the song that first caught my attention last summer, “You Come Down”. Seems she may appreciate cyclical themes as much as I do. I’ve been less than reserved about my appreciation and I feel it is a bit superfluous to suggest you give it a listen yourself but – you really should.

Honeybear (Aaron Meyer) is the founder of the blog Mouser at heymouser.com, updated every weekday with new music from great experimental-pop, dream-pop, folk, and electronic artists as well as alt-comedy.

Parenthetical Girls unveil video for ‘A Note To Self’

04 March 2013

Parenthetical Girls - Privilege

Privilege (Abridged) is the latest LP from Portland’s Parenthetical Girls, out now in the US via Marriage Records and released today in the UK and Europe via Splendour Records. Originally released as a five-part EP series between 2010-12, the extravagant outfit led by Zac Pennington condensed the original 21 songs from the five EP’s to a remastered and remixed 12-track album.
“Privilege retains the group’s signature ambitions-visceral intimacy, camp austerity, lurid eloquence-while confidently embracing the perfect pop pastiche their previous records only alluded to”, as the album’s blurb says. “Privilege is a cascade of grim particulars and gallows humour-an unflinching treatise on privilege, indiscretion, betrayal, sex and class politics, failure, and resignation.”

Last week Parenthetical Girls unveiled a video to accompany ‘A Note To Self’. Here’s what Zac Pennington said about the video:

“A winking homage to the works of performance artists like Vito Acconci, Marina Abramovic, Chris Burden, and Bas Jan Ader, “A Note To Self” uses obsolete, era-appropriate video technology to painstakingly recreate the awkward, incidental, and ridiculously fetishized aesthetics of late 60s, early 70s performance art documentation. It’s supposed to make you feel that way.”

Check it out below.